Good to be Back

Well it's great to be back. We had a wonderful time in America saw some great places, visited interesting churches and met some amazing people. I thought I'd fill you you in on the Churches we visited for a few days and then some reflections on our experiences of them.

We visited two Churches in Chicago. Of course we went to Willow Creek. This was on the Saturday night at one of their 'seeker services' (a service geared to non church members). The first thing top say about the place was what an amazing building it was. It's on a huge campus with car parking for possibly 1000's of cars. We arrived late (it's an hour out of Chicago) and went into the wrong auditorium. What we thought was the main meeting place was just the venue for the youth work. The main auditorium seats over 7000 people in really comfortable chairs. The sound, lighting, comfort and just general attention to detail was fantastic. The place has its own restaurant (it seats hundreds of people and has a variety of food) and huge bookstall.
For me the service wasn't as good as the facilities, but then again the service wasn't aimed at people like me. That's not to say it wasn't well done. The talk was interesting and memorable and the music was of a really high standard, but for me seemed a bit straight and passionless.
This was a big contrast to the church we went to the next day. Community Christian Church (CCC) is a network of 8 Churches across the Chicago area that are doing some innovative things. The Church we went to is their newest. Its was planted about 14months ago and meets in a local school. I think there are about 150 people meeting in two services, one a spanish speaking service. The way they do the talks at CCC is interesting. To ensure that all the churches are getting the same high standard is projected on big screens at the other venues. I really wasn't sure how I'd like this but to be honest it really didn't make much different. The talk was on how we can be 'hooked' on all sorts of things. While the talk was going on on one screen, there was another screen showing the powerpoint presentation. During the talk a young guy came on the stage and started moving a pile of stones from one place to another and then back again. The idea was to show the pointlessness of some of the things we get stuck on. The service had the same attention to detail as Willow Creek with the lighting sound etc just done on a smaller scale.
This particular Church is situated in one of the poorer areas of Chicago and out of all the churches we visited was the one Andrea and I felt most at home in. The service dealt with real issues, the worship was nowhere near and professionally done as at Willow Creek but had more passion and the people were warm and welcoming. I had a great chat with the pastor a few days later and I will comment on that in a future post.